Lesley grew up on a farm milking cows in the boonies of New York. At the age of seventeen, she was an exchange student to Lima, Peru.
Following in her mother's footsteps, a generation later, she graduated from Vassar Brothers Hospital School of Nursing as a Registered Nurse. Her career of forty-four years included Emergency Room nursing.
She adopted a baby girl from Colombia, and five years later had a baby boy!
Lesley was a very "protesting Protestant" until God opened her eyes and heart to the Roman Catholic Church. Her conversion story was a mini miracle, and the night she entered the Catholic Church, God "spoke to her heart" about what he wanted her to do with her life. That is the building of a retreat center on the "top lot" for God's good priests on the frontlines.
Lesley entered the Order of Secular Franciscans in 1999. An order in the Catholic Church for lay people who follow St. Francis of Assisi's teachings.
"I hope and pray this book touches your heart and helps you to ask God what HE wants you to do with your life.
The rest is yet to come. Thank you for your prayers." Lesley Mason Vaitekunas, OFS